Obama’s oration dealt to a large degree with how he came to understand what a U.S. senator is. “Now, even though my mother and grandparents took great pride that they had voted for him,” said Barack Obama of Inouye, “I confess that I wasn’t paying much attention to the United States Senate at the age of four or five or six. It wasn’t until I was 11 years old that I recall even learning what a U.S. senator was, or it registering, at least. It was during my summer vacation with my family — my first trip to what those of us in Hawaii call the Mainland.”

The story of the trip set up the punch line. He told Inouye’s mourners that “my mother that summer would turn on the TV every night during this vacation and watch the Watergate hearings,” and he was forced to watch, too. Of course, the senator who “fascinated” him most was “this man of Japanese descent with one arm, speaking in this courtly baritone, full of dignity and grace.”

This story would work only if Obama had toured the United States during the summer of the Watergate hearings, 1973, when he was eleven years old going on twelve, but in his memoir Dreams from My Father, he tells another story — a much more specific one. Yes, he made the same trip, but he did so “during the summer after my father’s visit to Hawaii, before my eleventh birthday.” This would have been 1972, when Watergate was still a third-rate burglary that had gotten little media traction.

In Dreams, Obama mentioned a Kansas City stop along the way, and Madelyn’s youngest brother in suburban KC would later provide photographic evidence of the same. He confirmed the year as 1972. This disparity did not stop Obama from relating in Dreams how in that elusive summer he “watched the Watergate hearings every night before going to bed.” There was no mention of Senator Inouye. He was apparently trying to make some other point.

When I first heard accusation that Obama talked all about himself during the memorial service I thought perhaps some folks were just looking for something to criticize. Well after watching this clip, I can say they were NOT wrong!

The video cuts off before Obama got to the girl he had a crush on in sixth grade. Good grief, it almost looked like he had no clue what to say